


Going My Way

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Sam Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 02, Sick Sam Winchester, Top Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 06:32:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17482964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: Dean catches Sam jerking off and from then, on, it's like a prank war but worse. Dean knows Sam has a downstairs brain and he's committed to uncovering what makes Sam tick. He takes it too far when Sam's true feelings are revealed.





	Going My Way

**Author's Note:**

> For SWBB. 
> 
> Sorry for slight delays, life happened.
> 
> And thank you to my wonderful amazing artist, blindswandive, for being so patient and talented and helpful throughout the writing process. 
> 
> PLEASE view the incredible art for the fic and leave some sunshine : https://blindswandive.livejournal.com/87489.html

Sam has known for a long time that he wasn’t like other boys.

Besides just a general “outcast” feeling, he’d always had trouble identifying with the masculine obsession with sex.

Maybe it was because he had Dean for a brother and John for a dad. Maybe it was just who he was. Sam had spent a good portion of his teenage years worrying about it before Stanford taught him not to sweat it.

His dick didn’t chub up the moment he saw a nice ass. Porn didn’t do it for him. Dean masturbated twice a day--in the shower in the morning and before he went to bed--and Sam didn’t masturbate. He was sick of feeling weird for it.

Okay, he didn’t masturbate often.

The correction felt necessary, considering he was crouched in front of his duffel bag and pulling out the fleshlight Dean got him for his birthday last year.

Dean had tried a lot of things to get Sam “out there,” toys were one of the recent attempts. Little did Dean know--or maybe he did, he was good at knowing a little too much--that Sam hadn’t used it once.

This would be the first time.

God, Sam was really hard. He forgot what it felt like, sometimes, when he was in what Dean referred to as a “dry spell” and what Sam thought of as a “normal spell.”

This? The throbbing in his legs and the animal anxiety, need need need, low in his gut? This wasn’t normal Sam.

And, like everything in Sam’s life, this was entirely Dean’s fault.

It had been a regular hunt. A poltergeist. A feisty one, too, considering it threw both of them around several times. It chucked Sam through an old pane of glass and he cut up his hand pretty badly. When they got back to the motel room, Dean sat him down on the toilet and stitched it up for him.

Dean’s hands were wide and strong, with little hairs and faded freckles and firm callouses on the tip of his fingers. Dean had inherited their dad’s hands; Sam had presumably inherited his mother’s more slender ones.

Watching Dean hold his hand and stitch it up didn’t turn Sam on. It was nice, sure, and he was able to ignore the pain to focus on the warmth of Dean’s skin against his, but then Dean had to go and do something fucking stupid.

He grabbed Sam by the chin, turning his head left and right, frowning and humming at him.

“What?” Sam asked, his jaw still vibrating where Dean’s fingers had manhandled him.

“That cut on your lip,” Dean said. “It’s still bleeding.”

Sam wet his lips with his tongue, tasting iron. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said.

Dean made a noise of disapproval, still squinting at Sam’s mouth. Sam got a little self conscious then, briefly pretending Dean’s narrowed eyes matched a different kind of expression while he stared at Sam’s mouth. “I think you need a stitch,” Dean said.

Sam sighed. He made a few more comments in protest, mostly to keep up the little brother persona, but he eventually allowed Dean to sew up his lip.

Dean used one hand to keep Sam’s mouth open, pulling his lip down. Sam couldn’t help it. His tongue kept brushing against Dean’s fingers as he swallowed, and his mouth flooded with the taste of Dean’s skin.

Dean didn’t really notice, too absorbed in staying careful and making sure he didn’t injure Sam more than he had to.

He tied off the stitch. He looked at his hand. “Eugh,” Dean said. “Spit blood. Lick it off.”

“Wha--”

Before Sam could finish his sentence, Dean was pushing his fingers into Sam’s mouth. Sam almost choked, but he did as Dean asked, licking his own blood off of Dean’s skin.

And, oh boy, that should not do things to Sam, but still.

Here he was, a couple of days later, flinging off his clothes and unwrapping the cellophane from around the fleshlight. It was the first time he’d been alone since The Incident.

He hopped up onto his bed, freezing there on his knees, naked and hard. His skin flushed. This was a completely normal activity, and yet it somehow felt dirtier than usual.

He could still taste Dean, feel the weight of those fingers on his tongue.

In a different world, for a different reason, Dean would swipe his fingers around the inside of Sam’s mouth, getting them all good and wet before twisting them up inside of Sam and making his toes curl.

Sam shivered; his cock twitched. That was… god.

He was horny.

Sam wasted no time in slicking his twitchy cock up with lube, putting the fleshlight onto a pile of pillows, and pushing into it. It was tight and slick, and god, it felt good. It was a release.

Since the only toys Sam had were gifts from Dean, none of them were dildos, so Sam made use of the lube and his own fingers, pushing his index finger into his hole and pretending it was Dean’s.

He was sweating now, his heart rabbiting, his skin overheating. He pushed into the fleshlight with a squish until he was fully seated inside it. He paused there, getting his finger all the way in to the knuckle in his hole.

It burned, and he thrusted slowly a few times to distract himself.

He added lube to his toy and his fingers, fucking with a little more desperation and crooking his finger up until--yes!

Sam groaned into a pillow. That was it. That was the feeling that Sam wanted to chase.

He tried to fuck the toy and himself at the same time, but multitasking was difficult. He took his fingers out of his ass and reached for more lube when the motel room door opened.

Sam froze. The door was on a wall perpendicular to the bed, and he was in full view of Dean. He was a deer caught in the headlights, staring up at his brother in shock while Dean raised an eyebrow and kicked the door shut behind him.

He was balls deep in the fleshlight, his hole burning pleasantly, and about three thrusts away from coming. He’d lost higher brain function, and his body wanted to fuck. He knew he should be scrambling to cover himself up, pulling out, but he couldn’t. “Uh,” was all he managed.

Dean walked over to the kitchenette table, dropping his coat and keys there. “Don’t stop on my account,” he said, taking his shoes off.

Sam’s heart became even more frantic. Had he heard that correctly?

“Go on.” Dean made a crude gesture. “This is a biannual event, I won’t take that from you. It’s like seein’ bigfoot.” Dean gave him a cheesy grin.

Sam didn’t know how to feel. Either Dean was into him--which Sam doubted--or Dean was even more sexual and goddamn weird than Sam had thought, and Dean found this completely normal for siblings.

Dean put a finger in his mouth, and it was to pick food out from his teeth, but still. That familiar image resurfaced in Sam’s head, and he could practically feel Dean’s fingers bluntly pushing at his entrance.

He fucked the toy, turning away from Dean, unsure of who he was and what the hell he was doing.

Dean whistled. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Sammy,” he said.

Sam twisted his hips, rolling his body, turning it into a show. Something about this whole situation gave Sam an abrupt, fucked up boost of confidence, and he’d always been a little bit of an exhibitionist. Sweat was pooling in the small of his back, and he was panting. He wrapped his arms around the pillow in front of him and went to town.

He’d been pulling mostly out and slamming back in, and, for the novelty of it, he slowly pulled all the way out, until his cockhead was catching on the fake pussy lips.

He snapped his hips, fully seating himself, and--oh god oh god oh god. Sam let out a groan and came inside the fleshlight, fucking it in rough, quick, small little pistons of his hips.

He felt his dick throb as he came, and he fucked the toy through his orgasm until he came back to earth. When his dick got too sensitive, he grabbed the toy and pulled out, grimacing at the little-too-much feeling.

He stood up, and Dean was staring at him. Dean’s jeans looked tighter. He stared back. After a beat, Sam looked away, and wobbled toward the bathroom, cleaning himself and the toy up. When he went back in the room, Dean had moved to the other bed and was watching Animal Planet. How appropriate. Had he finished his, you know, business, or willed it away?

Sam fetched the lube and put everything back into his duffel. He zipped it up. He stood, putting his clothes back on. Dean looked all zoned out, lazy and completely normal, like they hadn’t just bounded over a line they shouldn’t have even had to draw.

Sam wrung his hands, hyperaware of his body now in a way he totally should have been when he was, oh, he didn’t know, butt naked and masturbating in front of his older brother. Dean was acting all normal. Sam should be normal, too, right? But he couldn’t get his body to cooperate.

When the commercial break came on a few minutes later, Sam found the strength to lurch over to his bed with a rusty robot gait. He sat on the bed, watching the T.V. but not seeing it.

Dean turned and sat on the edge of his bed, facing Sam. “I’m confused,” he said, and he wasn’t the only one. “With a horse cock like that, you should be drowning in pussy.”

Sam flushed. He was embarrassed but there was familiar irritation growing inside him. Dean was so obsessed with Sam getting inside a pussy that he’d even bought him one. “If I wanted to get laid every night, I would,” Sam said.

Dean’s eyes widened. He spread his hands out. “So?” he asked, “why don’t you?”

Sam shook his head. He was beginning to adjust to the idea that Dean really did see this as normal. After all, Sam had walked in on Dean masturbating about a hundred times before, and Dean had never stopped on his account. While Dean wacked it in the bathroom every morning, Sam was brushing his teeth, listening to Dean grunt in the shower. It was normal. This was just role reversal, no big deal. He had liked that cocky feeling he’d gotten, putting his all into it.

“I’m not like you,” Sam eventually said. “I don’t watch porn.”

Dean looked like Sam had just shot him. “Ever?”

“Ever,” Sam confirmed.

“Then…” It was funny how lost Dean looked. “How?”

Sam rolled his shoulders. “I… I’m not motivated by it like you are,” Sam said. “I can go without it. And, trust me, when I want it, I can get it.” He gave Dean a look then, eyes dark.

“And here I thought you were a little bashful geek,” Dean laughed. Sam didn’t know what to say to that. A beat passed.

“Okay, then this,” Dean said, gesturing at Sam and then making a jerking off motion, “this came from something, right? Like, not porn, but not random, either?”

Sam glanced at Dean’s fingers and immediately looked away. “I guess, sure,” he said, trying for nonchalant.

He apparently hadn’t tried hard enough. Dean hung onto something he said. “Something must rile you up,” Dean said. “What gets Sammy’s engine going?”

“Are we really--? None of your business,” Sam said. “Why do you even want to know?”

“Healthy curiosity,” Dean said, shooting him a sleazy grin. “I’ve gotta look out for you, right? That includes making sure you’re, you know, doing the regularly scheduled maintenance.”

Sam groaned. “Dean--”

“And you were pretty good at it,” Dean said, standing. “So, what does it for you, huh? You can tell me.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “We are not talking about this.”

“That bad?”

“No!” Sam exclaimed. “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry you walked in. I’ll go get our laundry.” He stood and walked to the door.

“I won’t judge!” Dean yelled after him, and Sam slammed the door behind him, shoulders sagging as he walked away from the room. He sighed. He supposed Dean saw it as a kind of bonding. After all, Sam knew all of Dean’s kinks and fantasies, all of his recent lays. Dean was probably excited for some reciprocation.

Sam walked down the street, heading toward the little dumpy laundromat across from their motel. Dean was going to have to be disappointed, then.

After all, all of Sam’s fantasies involved Dean.

***

Sam had thought that that would be the end of it. He’d thought Dean would tease him for a few days--which he’d put up with in irritable little brother fashion--before Dean would get distracted by something else. A hot girl, a prospective hunt, an internet article on the history of Japanese animation, anything.

It turned out to be pretty naive of him.

Dean was like a dog with a bone. Once he latched onto something, you’d have to kill him before prying him off. Under normal circumstances, it was a trait Sam admired in him. It was great when hunting; right now, not so much.

They moved from town to town, Dean went from girl to girl, cutting a path across the ‘States to reach their next case. Possible haunting in New Jersey.

“New Jersey,” Dean grumbled. “I’d rather hunt in a friggin’ bayou in July than go to Jersey. But, uh, hey, Sammy, lots of spray tans, right? Fake tits get you going?” Dean shot him a glance while he changed lanes, grinning like an idiot.

Sam scoffed, looking out the window with pursed lips. “Don’t be rude,” he said.

“Oh, come on.”

Sam ignored him. Dean dropped the matter for the time being, which was a relief. They got to their motel in one piece. Sam unpacked everything and got their gear out on the table while Dean went scouting for a good lunch.

Dean came back just after Sam had field stripped all the pistols and had put up a pinboard with newspaper clippings on the wall. They would be all set up and ready to go after Dean rented some plumber uniforms from a local shop.

Dean carried in two greasy-bottomed fast food bags and a plastic bag from a convenience store.

“Bland leaves for you, double bacon onionator for me,” Dean said, setting the fast food bags down on the last few square inches of available space on the kitchenette table. “And, er, here. This is yours.” He tossed Sam the grocery bag.

Sam caught the grocery bag; whatever was in it was pretty light. He let it sit ignored in his lap while he grabbed his salad and water cup and unwrapped the utensils. Dean lifted his greasy burger out of the bag and Sam wrinkled his nose at the smell. “More like low calorie food for me and artery clogger for you,” he said.

Dean repeated him in mocking gibberish, like a child, before digging in, getting onions and ketchup all over his face. Sam rolled his eyes and started on his salad. He was all for show right now, knowing Dean only read his comments as “bitchy” and didn’t actually hear them.

It was better than what Dean had been harping on about ever since he’d walked in on Sam making a deposit at the spank bank. Sam was seriously regretting letting Dean watch. The stupid, piney, dopey part of his brain had seen the potential, and his upstairs brain had been turned off. Big mistake. Dean-esque mistake, really, which Sam thought was a tad ironic.

Dean finished his burger, wiping his face. He pointed to Sam’s lap. “You wanna look at that?” and something about his tone and expression had Sam perking up a little.

Sam had an extensive library of Dean expressions and emotions. He could almost always guess when Dean was pranking him, lying to him, being nice to him, mad at him, on and on.

Considering Sam had a mystery bag in his lap, he fully expected Dean to be overly-casual, glancing at him way too frequently to be normal. He expected there to be a VHS on erectile dysfunction in the grocery bag.

Dean’s face, however, was not doing all those things. It was paradoxically frenetic and calm in a way that Sam’s mental dictionary defined as “nervous.”

It made Sam take special care with his actions. He watched Dean as he lifted the object out of the plastic bag. He stared down at the cover of the glossy magazine in his hands.

The cover showed two bronzed, muscled men, one standing right up against the other with his hands on the other’s hips. They were grinning at each other with porny intent.

Sam choked on his croutons. Dean’s prodding for Sam’s secret kinks had taken him in a direction Sam wasn’t expecting. And, yeah, Sam liked guys--at least, he liked Dean. He liked Dean’s body. But they’d never talked about this. He’d never, you know, well, shit.

Sam dropped the magazine. He stared at Dean. Dean was staring back, looking like the lazy kid in class who got called on by the teacher when they both knew he didn’t know the answer.

“I told you, porn doesn’t do it for me,” Sam eventually weakly managed.

The vein on Dean’s forehead no longer looked like it was about to burst. “Well, porn, yeah,” Dean fumbled. “That’s… gay porn.”

“Nice attempt, but porn of any kind doesn’t do it. That’s porn,” Sam said carefully, not sure what he should say to Dean, or how important this moment was. He put the magazine back into the bag and dropped it to the ground.

“Right.” Dean nodded. His cheeks were flushed. “Well, er. I better go get those uniforms.”

Dean stood up, grabbing his keys and making a beeline for the door.

Sam called his name before Dean could escape. Dean froze in the doorframe, looking back at Sam. “Does this mean you’ll stop bugging me about this?” Sam asked, hoping to appeal the awkward and empathetic Dean before him.

Dean cracked a genuine smile. “Hell, no,” he said. “I’mma double my efforts.”

Dean shut the door at the same time Sam uttered a quiet and emphatic “fuck.”

He dreaded to see what Dean would cook up next. Distantly, he thought he should probably take steps to prepare.

But there was never a good way to prepare for Dean’s fuckery. When it got this bad, the only way it stopped was with retaliation, or when it reached dangerous heights and had to be stopped before one or both of them died.

Sam was so screwed, in every single way except the way he dreamed about.

***

Luckily, getting a job was a temporary respite from Dean’s shenanigans. They got dressed in their plumbers’ outfits and set out to scope out the haunted preparatory school.

School was just getting out when they arrived, and teenagers in school uniforms--cardigans and pleated skirts or chinos--were pouring out of the building.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean elbowed him. “What about those uniforms, huh?”

Sam gave him an incredulous look. “They’re minors, Dean.”

Dean squirmed, caught out. “Just the clothing,” he said. “Imagine someone hot in the uniform. Really gets me going.” Dean gave him a wink.

Sam rolled his eyes, turning quickly to open the door and hop out onto the curb so Dean couldn’t see the flush growing on his cheeks.

He thought Dean would look great in a skirt, but he was more interested in putting one on for Dean, turning that wink into something real.

***

The school itself didn’t give them much to go on. Their EMF readers didn’t so much as fart while they were casually cruising down the halls.

On their way out, Dean managed to wrangle a secretary who claimed to have seen a ghost into a conversation without it being awkward at all. Sam was impressed.

The woman was in her late forties and dressed in a woolen sweater and a skirt. Her hair was curled, and her eyes twinkled as she smiled up at the boys and invited them to walk her to her car while she retold the chilling and horrifying tale.

She was very dramatic, adding more and more details with each sympathetic look Sam gave her. She had some interesting stuff to say, like how the clothes of the ghost were “out of the fifties or something” and the ghost “was a sweet looking boy, really, despite having no eyes.”

The more she spoke, the more she added elaborate details and moments of drama that most likely didn’t happen, so Sam stopped taking mental notes. What he did note, though, was that she was spending a lot of time looking at him, edging closer, brushing against him as she reached into her purse and got her keys out.

They arrived at her Camry and Sam thanked her for sharing her traumatic experience with them and being so nice. She thanked him in return, telling them both they were nice boys.

“If you wanted,” she said, quirking a sultry smile at Sam, “I’m sure we could find something to fix in my master bathroom. Could you work under my sink, Sam?”

Sam sputtered, opening his mouth to politely let her down, when Dean had to open his damn mouth.

“Sam’s a great plumber,” Dean said. “The pipes he works with are just massive.”

Sam shot Dean a glare that could have killed fuzzy animals while the woman giggled. Sam thanked her again, said they really had to go, and bodily dragged Dean back to the car.

“What the hell was that?” Sam growled when they were back inside the car.

“You don’t like cougars? Or roleplaying?” Dean asked.

“Leave other people out of this,” Sam snapped. “Don’t be a child.”

“Geez.” Dean held his hands up. “Just trying to be your wingman, Sammy. If you told me what got your panties all hot, it wouldn’t have to come to this.”

“Shut up,” Sam said, and Dean shook his head, turning the keys in the ignition.

They drove home, Dean humming along with the song on the radio. Sam stared out the window in silence, praying for extra patience so he could get through this in one piece.

***

That night, after dinner, Dean gave Sam a foot massage.

Dean kept telling Sam that lots of people were into feet and that it wasn’t embarrassing at all.

Sam would have pushed him away, but Dean was really good with his hands. He let Dean give him a massage, then thanked Dean for the free massage, laughing at the way Dean’s face heated up when he realized what he’d done.

“You don’t know what you just did,” Dean warned as he got into bed. “I will find out. You’ll see.”

Sam glared at him. “Even if I did like feet, getting a massage from the most annoying person on the planet wouldn’t have done anything.”

Dean shut the lights off with a huff.

***

At the library, they scanned through microfiches of the school newspaper going back to the 1920s. Dean got bored easily enough, fiddling with the machine and making shadow puppets while Sam worked.

“Just tell me,” Dean whined. “Do you know what bloodletting is? You like that, Sammy?”

Sam didn’t look away, didn’t emote, just kept reading and searching. “No.”

“Crossdressing?”

Yes, Sam thought. “No.”

“Piss?”

Jesus fucking-- “No.”

Dean got quiet. “Shit?” Dean asked quietly. “Sammy, that’s not sanitary.”

Sam turned to face Dean. “I don’t have a scat fetish,” he said. The librarian walked past at just the wrong moment and gave him a look.

“BDSM? Robots? Star Wars Cosplay? Whip cream?”

“I think you’re just listing your kinks,” Sam drawled. He moved on to the next article.

Dean sighed. “What else is there? Do you like getting your balls stepped on? Getting shaved? Doing it in public? 72 virgins at once?” Dean paused. “Bestiality?”

Sam’s eyes widened. “That’s it!” he said.

Dean choked. “Jesus Christ, Sammy, really? Those poor animals!”

Sam blinked. “You… what? No--what the fuck, Dean, no! I found our ghost!”

Dean’s relief was palpable. He dropped his head before scooting into Sam’s space and peering over Sam’s shoulder at a news article titled “STUDENT FOUND HANGING” with a grainy black and white picture of a somber looking boy below the heading.

***

The article came with a name, and the town’s records came with the locations of a bunch of family plots, including the plot of the McAllisters, whose son Roy in 1949 had killed himself due to bullying and threats.

They knew who did it, and not only that, where the bones were. Not only that, but the ghost had only seriously injured three kids, and there were no deaths yet.

When the sun went down, they’d drive to the right cemetery and burn the bones, and then this would all be over, and they’d be able to definitively put this hunt in the “win” category. They hadn’t had one in a long time. Before this, the hunt that had Sam feeling the most positive had a body count of two.

This hunt made it actually feel like they were saving people, not just playing catch up or cleaning up grisly messes.

They didn’t have much to do before sundown, so they grabbed lunch and lazed around in the motel room. Dean watched T.V. while Sam puttered about on his laptop. He was content to browse interesting articles about oral Vietnamese traditions when Dean grabbed him by the arm.

Sam stood, quirking an eyebrow. “What?” he asked.

“I’m getting antsy,” Dean said. He started doing stretches, holding one arm out for a few beats before switching to his other arm. “Let’s do some training, stay ship shape for later tonight.”

“Dean, we are ship shape,” Sam said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

Dean started jogging in place. “C’mon, Sammy,” he said. “Don’t make me find other ways to entertain myself.”

Point taken. Sam heaved a big sigh and Dean immediately pumped his fist in victory. “What did you have in mind?” Sam asked, already weary.

***

What Dean had in mind was a strict regimen that would have made their father proud.

Sam would have preferred not to do it, but Dean picked up on his reluctance and called him out for being rusty, so Sam put Dean in his place with a well-timed jab.

They stretched first, then Dean insisted on going for a run, though where they would run in this two-bar town Sam had no idea. They ended up jogging down residential side streets behind the motel, Dean waving merrily to trailer home owners while they breezed past.

They ran for about a mile before circling back. By the time they got back to the motel, Sam was doused in sweat, and Dean was irritatingly sweat free. Sam had always sweat easily, and it wasn’t fair that it made him look more out of shape than Dean. Dean and his burgers, his lazy attitudes. Guy was too cocky.

When they got to sparring, Sam was energized. All of Dean’s bullshit over the past few days was getting to him, and here was a perfect outlet for his frustration. He didn’t want to hurt Dean, but beating him in their training and putting his ego in place would really get Sam’s schadenfreude engines going.

They were evenly matched, had been since Sam was sixteen. It was no longer about brute force or speed; it was all strategy. Sam’s thoughts were whirling while he and Dean circled in the middle of the motel room, beds shoved up against the walls.

Dean made the first move, but Sam anticipated it and breezed out of the way easily, tilting back at just the right moment to give Dean a push on the lower back. Dean stumbled, but he didn’t fall.

“What a clever boy,” Dean said, intending to mock, but it only made Sam’s blood hotter. He lunged, catching Dean by surprise, and they both went down hard.

Dean fought dirty after that. Once his back hit the floor all bets were off. Sam was pretty sure Dean even bit him at first, but he was too into it--had tunnel vision at one point--to really process anything, to really process pain.

He had Dean pinned and Dean had a funny look in his eyes. “Jesus, Sammy, don’t kill me,” Dean laughed, but he wasn’t smiling. “You okay?”

Sam loosened up for just a second, Dean’s words lacing his body with guilt. In the split second Sam’s hand wasn’t tensed against Dean’s throat, Dean’s arm shot out, getting him by the upper arm and reversing their positions, slamming Sam into the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

Dean crawled over Sam, holding Sam’s wrists down above his head, his knees pinning his hips. Dean had a smug little grin on, narrowed eyes, and his chest was moving up and down, up and down. “Pussy,” Dean said. “You fight like a little bitch.”

Sam knew he should have felt angry, but his body was hyper fixated on Dean’s hands on his wrists and Dean’s knees on his hips, Dean’s body all over him, keeping him down. Dean insulting him. The blood in his body rushed south.

Oh, shit. Now was not the time. Now was not the fucking time. Sam tried throwing Dean off, tried tensing his muscles and thinking of half-decayed grandmas, but none of it worked. Sam might have been bigger than Dean, but Dean’s technique was perfect, and Sam couldn’t get any leverage to escape.

“You proved your point,” he growled, pushing past the cracking of his voice. “Now get off of me.”

“Nah, it hasn’t quite soaked in yet,” Dean said, always one to gloat, damn him. He sank lower, pressing more of his body against Sam’s. “I think I’m gonna…”

Dean trailed off, and Sam could pinpoint the exact moment in Dean’s eyes when his stupid victory parade turned into realization. Realization that Sam was hard and not fighting back.

“This is what gets you off?” Dean asked, disbelieving. “After all the shit I tried, all I had to do was pin you? Sammy, Sammy.”

Sam got his legs up in a fit of rage and bunny-kicked Dean off of him. Dean went flying, but he sat up on his haunches looking no worse for wear, and he was fucking laughing. Sam sat up, face burning in embarrassment and some kind of detached, dull horror. Dean had to know but Dean wasn’t acting like someone who had just uncovered their brother’s biggest incestuous secret.

Sam stood up, rubbing his sore wrists. Dean got up after him. “Good game,” Dean joked. Sam turned away. Maybe he could just take a shower and Dean would be normal when he got back. If they hadn’t crossed the line earlier, why would this change things?

He was almost into the bathroom door when Dean spoke up again. “Is that what you were thinkin’ of when I walked in on you? Guess no one can resist this ass.”

Something about Dean’s tone of voice and how blase he was about all of this got to Sam, even as he wished they could just pretend it all never happened, that he could ignore it. He whirled back around, getting into Dean’s space. “Fuck you,” he spat, watching the mirth on Dean’s face spread into shock, eyes going wide.

He didn’t wait around to see if Dean gauged how fucking pissed he really was, and slammed the motel door on his way out.

***

The rage and adrenaline in Sam’s veins didn’t abate until he’d walked a mile or two away from the motel. He’d headed out of town, walking on a hot and dusty country road. He kicked at the dirt as he walked.

He was still just in a t-shirt and jeans from sparring, but he was sweaty and overheated and uncomfortable. He wished he could throw his shirt off but that would make him uncomfortable, too.

Sam sighed, the energy oozing out of him like he’d nicked an artery. He found a nice tree with a spot of shade and sat under it, leaning back against the trunk.

This was all so fucking stupid it was unreal.

Only it wasn’t stupid and it was definitely real.

Dean knew.

Sam squeezed his eyes tight. His throat was burning because of exhaustion, not because of anything else. He ignored the tears beading at the corner of his eyes.

Sam had always known Dean didn’t feel the same way. Sam had always known he was a freak and a monster. He’d been okay with hiding it, with stuffing it down inside him and running to California to escape it, to find someone else to love, okay.

When he’d gotten back on the road with Dean, he’d learned to sit with the lump in his heart. It was fine. It would always be this way. He was living with it and it didn’t bother him. Dean loved him back--albeit in a far less intimate way--and that was enough.

But Sam was a dreamer at heart. In his core, he was so fucking soft he was cotton, and he hated himself for it.

When it was dark and he was alone and he felt safe he had these little fantasies, these time-worn, familiar daydreams that he’d dreamt a thousand times. He’d gone over them so many times that he could almost smell worn old vellum when he started thinking about them. He memorized scents and fabric feels and Dean’s favorite shirt logo and everything, everything so that the dreams would feel real. It was almost a meditative state.

He’d been doing it less and less recently because he knew that maladaptive daydreaming was a big no-no, especially in their line of work. Some demonic bastard could reach in and poison that shit, or worse, bring it out into the open.

He could still remember the details, though.

In Sam’s dreams, he and Dean were on the road, and they were happy, and they had each other. Sam could tell Dean how he felt--whisper it against his chest in a moment of vulnerability--and Dean would only hold him tighter, Dean would only kiss him sweetly awake the next morning after sleeping together, tangled in each other’s arms.

Sam couldn’t pinpoint when he’d started crying but now it was more than just sniffles and blurry eyes, it was actual crying, something he hadn’t done in years, not even for Jessica.

God, this was so fucked up.

Sam drew his legs up to his chest and cried into his knee. He let out one good, miserable wail before he jerked his head back upright, wiping his face on his sleeve. He scrubbed a hand down his cheeks and ran a hand through his hair for good measure. He was okay. He was alive. Dean hadn’t realized the pressure point he’d hit. Sam would come back and either they’d talk about it or they wouldn’t and things would continue on as normal.

Sam sniffed. They just had to.

If Dad dying or Sam having freaky psychic powers couldn’t pull Sam and Dean apart, then surely this was small fries in comparison.

Sam stood up on wobbly legs, sniffling a few times. He wiped his face again. His cheeks were blotchy and his eyes were red.

The walk home should have been long enough for his face to clear up and his throat to feel less thick so he could get his act together before facing Dean, but miles before he reached home, a familiar black car approached on the horizon, heat mirages shimmering over the hood. The car pulled over to the side of the road directly in front of him, engine ticking in the heat.

Just as well. Sam was never very good at this whole luck thing.

He didn’t give Dean an opportunity to get out of the car and say something Sam didn’t want to hear. No matter what Dean had to say, Sam didn’t want to hear it. He got in the car instead. The radio was playing. He stared directly out the dashboard window. He could feel Dean’s eyes on him but he didn’t turn to look.

They stayed like that for about a minute, playing fucking chicken or something. Well, Sam wasn’t ready to be a human being yet. He was content to sit in silence. Dean let out a little breath and turned up the radio even louder, putting the car in drive and taking them back to the motel.

***

Sam got out of the car the moment Dean threw it in park. Sam was just plain tired and he was acutely aware of how gross he was and how desperately he needed a shower.

Dean followed him into the room. The beds had been pushed back into their normal places and a salad from Sam’s favorite soup place was on the kitchenette table as a peace offering, but Sam never broke his stride, heading toward the bathroom door shining in the distance.

“Sammy, wait,” Dean called out.

Sam should have kept moving, should have slammed the door behind him for good measure, but he froze.

“Look at me,” Dean said.

Sam turned around.

Dean was still by the door, car keys hanging from one crooked finger. He was frowning and his eyebrows were pushed together, his eyes soft in genuine concern. Sam was always weak to that look, so when Dean moved forward, sitting on the edge of one of the beds, Sam mirrored him, sitting across from him on the edge of the other bed.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said quietly.

There it was. There was Sam’s out. He drew up all of his energy and gave Dean a little smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “Clean slate.” He pat the seat of his pants once then stood up. He made to head back to the bathroom but a hand around his wrist prevented him from moving.

Dean was looking up at him with an incredulous look. “There is no way we’re done talking about this,” he said.

Sam sat back down.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you like that,” Dean continued. “It was a dick move.”

Sam knew he was supposed to say something here, but he couldn’t remember his lines. He felt empty, devoid of personhood.

Dean was still looking at him In That Way, and his lips only pursed further at Sam’s lack of response. “I was just teasing you, but it was fucked up,” Dean tried again. “You don’t work the same way as I do, Sammy, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Now you know why,” Sam croaked, surprising himself.

Dean blinked, not understanding. “What?”

“Now you know why,” Sam repeated, still raspy but a little stronger. “Why I’m like that.”

The moment he saw understanding in Dean’s eyes, he looked to the carpet. He couldn’t stand to see what expressions were playing across Dean’s face now.

“Look at me,” Dean whispered.

Sam looked, damn him. He couldn’t help it.

Dean’s face was all soft and pitying but he couldn’t look away. “What do you want?” Dean asked, and he was so sincere that Sam couldn’t help but laugh.

“What do I want?” he repeated, sounding bitter to his own ears. To Dean’s credit, Dean only nodded, unphased. “You don’t want to know that.”

“Try me,” Dean said.

Sam shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. At this point, he didn’t have much to lose. “All of it,” he said, giving Dean a weak and sad smile. His eyes were burning again. His throat got thicker as he spoke, thinking of the dangerous dreams he promised he wouldn’t revisit. “You… you can find someone in every town, drop into every bed… it’s not like that for me. I just want one thing, you know? I--I want the hands and the smiles and the trust and the stupid bickering and the growing old.” Sam caught himself before his words devolved into a sob.

Dean was smiling, but he looked so lost. “And you want that with me?” he asked, making it sound like a ridiculous proposition. It was, Sam knew, but it still hurt.

And there it was, too; there was the direct question out in the open.

“Yes,” Sam croaked, sounding like shattered glass, feeling simultaneously free of some cage and forever trapped in another.

Dean leaned back. He bit his lip. He was thinking through something. “Okay,” Dean said, and at least he didn’t sound mad. “I’m sorry. Dinner?”

“Or,” Dean said when Sam opened his mouth, pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger, “you can shower first.”

Sam laughed despite himself, despite his reality. He got up and he went to the bathroom.

He showered.

When he was finished, he got dressed, and he started to feel kind of normal again.

When he walked into the room, Dean was eating, and a warm cup of coffee had apparated next to Sam’s salad. He sat down and took a sip. Vanilla soy latte. He gave Dean a thankful look and Dean bobbed his head before crushing four ketchup-doused onion rings into his maw at once.

Sam ate; he found he was hungry.

They didn’t talk about it again.

***

It was simultaneously weird and not weird at all, after that.

Sam was free of Dean’s single-minded, vulgar teasing, and he was thankful for that. They’d somehow veered back onto the beaten path by careening off of it enough to get back to where they started. Their heart-to-heart had corrected the alternate dimension they’d created when Sam had masturbated in front of Dean.

God. That felt like that had happened to a different person a million years ago.

So Dean knew. Dean didn’t just suspect, he didn’t just think it was a kink or a crush. He knew the whole shebang.

And he didn’t seem to care.

They burned the bones that night; they moved on to another town.

A week went by. Another.

Sam felt like he was constantly on his toes, braced for a situation that he’d have to flee from or apologize for. After a while, his hackles lowered, and he stopped feeling like the other shoe was going to drop. He made jokes, Dean laughed at them, and vice versa.

Someone else needed saving, really badly, and more psychic kids kept popping up, and well, it was kind of hard to worry about incestuous confessions when all of that was going on.

They didn’t have a new normal; they had the same old one as always.

They drove on.

***

They were somewhere on the east coast when something weird happened.

Not something hunt-y weird--they were looking for a Black Dog, after all, nothing in that department was too weird--but something Dean-y weird.

Usually, during wait times in hunts, when they would sit tight for a few hours for test results or for Ash to crack a file or for it to get dark enough so they could break into a maritime museum or something, they didn’t do much. They trained and watched T.V. and shot the shit.

Today, when Sam came home a little after four with their laundry folded nicely in a basket under his arm, Dean wasn’t in boxers sprawled across Sam’s bed eating tostitos off of his stomach.

He was kind of the opposite, really. He was standing in front of the mirror on the bureau putting on his sole nice button down dress shirt. It wasn’t the starch-y FBI suit shirts, it was something else, well fitting and fancy. Sam didn’t think he’d actually ever seen Dean wear it before.

Sam made a scoffy noise and Dean’s head shot up. Sam closed the door, dropped the laundry, and quirked an eyebrow. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.

“Put something nice on,” Dean said instead of answering. “We’ve gotta leave before 5.”

“What? Why?” Sam dug through his laundry. He was just now realizing he didn’t have a nice shirt like Dean did, save for his fed suit stuff. Anything remotely decent had burned in the fire.

Sam pulled out his FBI shirt and slacks. Dean tsked at him. Sam looked up at him in confusion.

“Keep the shirt, ditch the pants,” Dean advised. “Too stuffy. Here.”

Dean ambled over, rolling his own sleeves up to his elbows. He dug through the laundry until he found a particular pair of Sam’s jeans. “Wear these.”

“These?” Sam echoed, but he took them from Dean.

They stood. Dean waved a hand at him. “Go on.”

Mutely, Sam got dressed. He rolled his sleeves up like Dean’s. Dean looked him up and down, like an appraiser at an auction. Dean nodded at Sam and then shot him a cheeky grin. “Probably good enough, right?” he asked.

Sam had come to terms with the fact Dean was being weird, and was doing something suspicious that would probably fuck Sam over, so he didn’t say anything, didn’t give Dean a reaction. Dean checked his watch. “Time to move out,” he said.

Dean grabbed his keys and went to the door, holding it open. Sam smelled the sea on the air. He walked out the door and Dean followed him.

They got into the Impala at the same time. Dean turned on the radio, switching it to a soft rock station that was more Sam’s style. Sam was getting nervous.

They pulled in front of a mildly fancy restaurant, a step above Olive Garden but not somewhere with any Michelin stars.

Dean led Sam inside.

“Reservation for two,” Dean told the hostess. “Under Rose.”

She nodded politely at him, leading them deeper into the dimly lit restaurant. It was up to Sam’s neck in ambiance, with slow-moving waiters pouring red wines in front of old couples.

They were brought to a booth in the back. Dean sat down across from Sam. Dean started perusing the menu as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

After a few minutes, Dean finally noticed Sam was staring at him instead of picking up his own menu.

“What the hell?” Sam asked when they made eye contact. “Are we meeting someone? Is there a plan?”

Dean chewed on his bottom lip, looking far too innocent. “No plan,” he said. “Just Italian food. Don’t you like it, fancy boy?”

“Uh, yeah…” Sam trailed off uncertainly. He felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t even considered that Dean might just be doing something nice for him. Italian was one of Sam’s favorites. Dean was watching him, and he was still chewing on his lip--one of Dean’s tells--so Sam picked up the other menu to get Dean to relax.

The food was actually kickass, too. Sam had a thing for fettuccine, and he ate it so rarely that he couldn’t help but moan at the first bite. Even the salad here was more delicious than Sam’s usual fare.

Dean was pleased, all pink cheeked and giddy. “Good, huh?” he said. “Deputy Darla recommended this place.”

“It’s good,” Sam agreed, smiling back at his brother, ‘cause Dean smiling made Sam smile, “but why are we here?”

Dean shrugged, his enthusiasm dimming a little. “No reason.”

Sam frowned. Dean reached across the table, poking Sam’s pasta with his fork. “You gonna eat that?”

Sam batted Dean’s arm away and kept eating. Dean made some crass joke about an elderly couple sitting near them and Sam whisper-yelled at him to keep his voice down.

Sam was picking fives and tens out of his wallet for a tip when the waiter came back. They’d both devoured their plates--no take-home boxes to last several weeks this time.

Instead of asking for the check, Dean asked for dessert. He shot Sam a sideways grin while speaking to the water. “This one is a fan of tiramisu,” Dean told the waiter, “and tonight’s for him, so.”

The waiter beamed, clearly smitten with the display of affection that Dean was serving Sam. “One tiramisu,” he said, and walked away.

Dessert? They never got dessert.

Dean said tonight was for Sam.

Sam was getting an inkling of what this was.

They stayed quiet while they waited for dessert. Sam fiddled with the napkin in his lap. He avoided eye contact with Dean, and the one time he caught his eye when glancing at Dean, Dean was clearly nervous. More so than before.

The waiter came back with the dessert and set it down before Sam with a flourish. Sam thanked him and dug in, and, okay, it was really good. Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d treated himself to any kind of sweet (other than coffee, shut up) and he had a serious sweet tooth. Dean didn’t even swipe any of it from Sam. It was a small plate so it was gone quickly.

“Thank you, seriously,” Sam said to Dean as they walked back to the car, “but you don’t have to butter me up or anything.”

Dean cocked his head. “No?”

“It’s behind us,” Sam said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “We’re even. I forgive you. I don’t need a nice meal to prove that.”

“You don’t--?” Dean wasn’t on the same page. His eyes widened and his face fell. “That’s what you think this is?”

“What else could it be?” Sam had briefly entertained fears of Dean mocking him further, of taking all of this to new heights, but A) Dean wasn’t that big of a dick, and B) he had sincerely apologized, so C) he wasn’t that big of a dick.

Dean just shook his head. Sam couldn’t get a straight read on him. “Get into the car, you idiot,” Dean said, light with affection. Sam got in, and they drove back to the motel.

The following morning, they had a breakthrough with the case.

***

Sam had almost forgotten about that instance of Dean-y weirdness until he started noticing a pattern.

Dean was being nice to him.

Dean pulled his chair out before Sam sat and Dean let Sam pick the music about a quarter of the time--up from zero. Dean randomly brought home foods that Sam loved. Dean stood closer to him. Dean introduced Sam in incredibly neutral and nonspecific ways during hunts that several witnesses inferred to be a romantic inclination.

Sam didn’t know how to feel about it. He knew Dean was genuinely remorseful about tearing Sam’s skin off and letting his secrets out to breathe the way he did, but this was going a little too far.

It had to be something else.

Sam puzzled over it in silence, watching Dean’s every move. Sirens went off in his head every time Dean’s behavior was a little off.

They were in Indiana casing a neighborhood after a “vicious animal attack.” Dean wasn’t sure which “animals” only ate human eyes, but the excuses of small town law enforcement didn’t surprise him anymore. They were pretty much going door-to-door now, canvassing the block around the victim’s home, posing as new homeowners concerned about the local culture.

Dean was scarily good at bitching about HOAs. He kept his arm looped low around Sam’s waist, and Sam unconsciously moved into Dean’s space. He didn’t even really process how Dean’s fingers were tapping on his waist, how Dean kept pressing their thighs together, until the homeowner whose living room they were in pointed it out.

“You guys are out?” the dude asked, nodding sagely. “I’m jealous. You two are adorbs.”

Sam opened his mouth to reply with some kind of negative, some variation of no, we’re brothers, when Dean squeezed Sam’s hip, smiled, and said, “thanks. It’s kind of new.”

Sam kept silent, mind moving at a billion miles per hour while he tried to parse through what Dean had said. Dean and the guy kept talking and Sam wasn’t paying attention to what. It could have been gay gossip or a serial murderer’s confession for all Sam knew.

It’s kind of new? Was Dean putting on a role? Dean had gone along with people before when they thought they were a couple, but it was usually for shits and giggles or to further work a sympathetic witness. That made sense here, but it didn’t sit well with Sam.

Dean had been genuine, not farcical. Dean’s smile had been a smile Sam had seen a zillion times before. It was a smile that Dean wore whenever someone said something like “your brother’s a smart one” or “you two really look out for each other” or something. Sam was very familiar with that smile, considering it was reserved for him.

Sam kept quiet while the witness opened up to Dean, rambling at him like the floodgates had burst. Dean scribbled it all down, even the unimportant stuff, acting really interested and saying it would help in his home search a lot.

“I’m glad you guys came to our little city,” the homeowner said. “Secret gay paradise.”

Dean laughed. “It’ll be good to retire here,” he said. He turned to Sam, leaning close and brushing Sam’s hair behind his ear. Sam warmed at that; as a kid the only thing that made him fall back asleep after a nightmare was Dean’s fingers carding through his hair. “Don’t you think, sweetheart?”

Sam blinked, opening and closing his mouth like an aquarium fish. “Uh, sure,” he got out.

The homeowner said his goodbyes, and Sam and Dean trotted down the front step.

“Did you get anything?” Sam asked Dean.

Dean wiggled his notepad in the air. “One minor detail that no one else has said yet,” he said. “A glowing blue light.”

“Glowing blue light…” Sam repeated under his breath, searching through a mental catalog of possible monsters that liked eyes and glowed blue. It sure was specific, which was a good thing for them. Sam had high hopes about this particular case. “What was that about, by the way?”

“‘That’?” Dean parroted.

Sam waggled his hand around vaguely. They got to the Impala, but stood staring at each other over the hood instead of getting in. “Back there, with the guy,” he said. “You were getting awful cuddly.”

Dean’s brows pushed from high and happy to bunchy and pissed. “Seriously, Sam?” he snapped before getting in the car.

Sam stared at the space Dean had occupied for a few moments. He didn’t know what was going on. Dean beeped the horn and Sam startled. Heart racing, he slid into the passenger seat.

***

Dean was flinging layers off and tossing his backpack onto the bed when he stormed into the room. Sam followed more slowly, as if Dean were a tornado that could scoop him up if he made the wrong move.

“You good?” Sam asked.

Dean whirled around to face Sam. “‘You good?’” he mocked, going falsetto. He glared at Sam. “I’m great.”

Now Sam was angry. He’d been through a lot of shit in the past few months, and he was fucking confused, sue him. “What’s your deal?” he asked.

“What’s my deal?” Dean said, sounding incredulous.

“Is there an echo in here?” Sam snapped. “Stop being a jerk and just tell me what’s going on.”

Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. He was still angry, but it had simmered down some. Dean gave Sam a long, searching look. He threw his arms open. “What else do I gotta do?” he asked in a laugh.

That didn’t clear anything up for Sam. He stayed silent, hoping Dean would elaborate.

Dean shook his head. He fell back onto the nearest bed. “I don’t know how to help you, Sammy. It’s like you’re fricking blind or something.”

“I’ve noticed you acting oddly,” Sam said. “If that’s what this is about.”

“Jesus christ.” Dean laughed. “I’ve never met someone more oblivious than you.”

At Sam’s look of confusion, Dean stood back up, walking over to Sam. “Why do you think I take you out for dinner?” Dean asked, his voice going raspy. “Why do you think I let people think what they want? Why do you think I keep gettin’ you nice things, lettin’ you drive?”

“Because you’re being nice?” Sam asked in a small voice.

Dean laughed again. He shook his head. “Sammy, it is what it is,” he said. “Why does anyone take someone else out on a date?”

“A date?” Now it was Sam’s turn to parrot dumbly. “That was a date?”

“There have been several,” Dean corrected. “But apparently Sam Winchester can get in the 99th percentile in the LSAT but he can’t pick up a single fucking hint.”

Sam was speechless. After fishing for something to say for ages, he settled on “no.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “No?” he asked.

“No,” Sam said. “I told you… everything. You didn’t… you don’t feel the same way,” Sam said. “You would’ve told me.”

Dean took Sam by the arms, getting into his space until they were just a hair’s width apart. “I’ve told you a thousand times between here and Cheyenne,” Dean whispered. “Why aren’t you listening?”

“No,” Sam repeated, pushing Dean away. “I would’ve known, I would’ve--”

“Sammy,” Dean interjected, “why can’t you let yourself have anything nice?”

Just like that, and the wind was out of Sam’s sails. He deflated, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Dean went down with him, putting a hand on Sam’s back. Dean kept quiet while Sam stared at the floor.

It was a lot to process.

Sam hadn’t visited his fantasies since the incident on the road. They felt wrong, somehow. It wasn’t that Sam had fallen out of love or anything, it was just that he’d gotten real, full, actual closure that Dean knew how he felt and didn’t feel the same. If anything, it had been a relief just to know Dean didn’t hate him, Dean wasn’t disgusted with him.

And now Dean was telling him that he’d pretty much been trying to woo Sam for weeks. For thousands of miles. And Sam hadn’t noticed. Why would he?

“It’s not real,” Sam whispered. He realized with embarrassment that he was tearing up and his throat was getting fuller by the minute. “You’re Dean,” he said, turning to face his brother with a sad smile. “You don’t want this.”

“I didn’t,” Dean admitted in a murmur, giving Sam a mirrored sad smile, “‘cause I didn’t know what I was missing.”

Sam opened his mouth to speak again but Dean put a hand on his knee. “Shh,” he whispered. “Sam, I’ve been oblivious for eight years, but bein’ on the road with you, it…” He nosed Sam’s jaw. “God, you don’t even know what you do to me. I just wanna… keep you safe. Hold you here.”

Sam closed his eyes and shivered. Eight years, Dean had said. Dean had apparently done some thinking and soul searching of his own, or else he wouldn’t have realized Sam’s feelings had started when Sam was around fourteen. What had Dean not noticed then that he remembered now?

Dean pulled back just far enough to meet Sam’s eyes. “Say something,” he whispered.

Sam swallowed. “You… you want me?”

He flushed red when his voice cracked, when that damn gaping weak spot of his was brought back out in the open.

Dean leaned in, kissed him on the nose. “Yes,” he said, softly, and when he pulled back, his eyes were wet, and soft, and. Sam just.

Sam melted into Dean’s arms, burying his nose in Dean’s shoulder. Dean wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close, rubbing at his back and muttering soothing little nothings.

Sam was crying. He wasn’t full out bawling, he wasn’t sobbing, but he was taking little hitching breaks in Dean’s shoulder, getting Dean’s shirt wet with tears.

It was all sinking in at once. Every nice thing Dean had done, every little detail that had set off warning bells in Sam’s head. Dean had done it because that was how Dean spoke, how Dean loved--in actions, in little, mushy, sentimental things. Dean was soft at heart, too, but Sam had never hoped in all of detailed little fantasies that Dean would be soft for him, too.

Not like this.

He didn’t know how long they sat there, Dean lightly rocking Sam back and forth, before Sam felt like he was okay to lean back and look Dean in the eye.

He knew he must look like a mess, but he felt better about it when he saw how messed up Dean looked, too. His own shirt sported a twin wet spot.

“So, uh, that was embarrassing,” Dean laughed.

“Definitely.” Sam gave a shy grin. “I think I ran out of tears.”

Dean sobered. He touched Sam’s knee again and Sam’s skin vibrated there. “So, we good?” Dean asked, looking adorably consternated. “I don’t have to spell it out again, right?”

Sam laughed wetly. He shook his head and looked down at his lap, rubbing at his eyes. He looked up at Dean with a smile. “No,” he said. “I read you loud and clear.”

“What does that mean?” Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. “I dunno,” he said, nibbling on the inside of his cheek. He kept peeking at Dean like he thought Dean would disappear any minute and he’d wake up from a dream. “I think I could be less oblivious this time.”

“You think?” Dean chuckled. “I guess we have to test that out.”

Neither of them had stopped smiling in the past five minutes. “Guess so,” Sam said.

***

It was only up from there.

All the things Sam already appreciated were painted in a new light. Each time they struck out on some interstate, windows down, radio blasting, just the two of them, Sam felt like he was flying. Renting a motel room from the night went from two queens to one king; a joke from only a few months ago that made Sam’s heart warm now.

Now, when Dean introduced Sam on a hunt, Sam glowed, no matter if Dean said “partner,” “brother,” or “boyfriend,” because no matter what the other people saw, Sam felt Dean’s hand slip possessively into his back pocket. Dean’s sweetness was addicting, even if sometimes Sam had to weasel it out of him.

They’d always been a perfect team, but it felt like now they were both more aware of the nonverbal language they shared, the minute gestures, and things got streamlined, confident. Hunts were bursts of adrenaline that led to desperate, life-affirming touches after that left Sam dizzy.

They hadn’t done anything beyond those touches, though.

Sam was waiting.

The ball was in Dean’s court. They both knew that. Sam kept sneaking looks at Dean, seeing only his usual carefree, jackass brother, not the pondering look of someone planning a big romantic interlude.

Even though Sam craved more, his fantasies setting up all kinds of expectations and worries, what he had now was honestly perfect. He’d never felt more connected to Dean, to anyone. Catching the looks Dean gave him and knowing what they meant was life affirming.

He was content to soak it in, to live in the moment, and to fight. To burn bones and sew stitches.

They were in Minnesota just as the leaves were beginning to turn. Children were dying in an orphanage. It would be comical if it weren’t so fucked up. They went in prepared, but it still pulled on Sam’s heartstrings to see injured kids, to see hollow eyes and familiar fear.

The ghost was extra hungry, extra angry, stirring up trouble every night. The nursemaids only started moving children away from the obviously haunted north hall after Dean threatened to unearth all kinds of skeletons from their closet.

Things were coming along pretty smoothly, the archives at the local historical preservation society providing a lot of good information, one of Sam’s theories piecing together fairly neatly, but it didn’t make it less stressful, didn’t stop Sam from feeling sick every time they woke up to another call from the coroner’s office.

They were at the library--and had been all day--when Sam had a major breakthrough. An abused child’s story from a century ago had been recorded in a psychiatrist’s journal, and the types of killings matched the types of trauma the kid suffered through under the “care” of two sadistic nursemaids.

The orphanage had its own grounds and cemetery. Breaking in at night and finding the plot was easy. Actually burning the bones was not.

The spirit of the dead child was alight with a furious rage, more powerful than most of the ghosts they dealt with. She wanted justice, wanted revenge, and she was blinded with it. Anyone who stood in her way was threatened with the same “moral correction” she was subjected to.

Dean burned her bones, but only after she’d thrown Sam around a lot, knocking him into headstones and choking him, calling him a sinner.

Dean threw an arm around Sam’s shoulder as they left the cemetery, helping him walk to the Impala. Sam’s head was swimming, his feat unsteady, and her high pitched, raspy damnations echoed in his head.

That night, Dean helped Sam undress, carefully bathing him and patching him up. Sam had dark spots in his memory, probably concussed, and he didn’t have enough energy to protest as Dean coddled the shit out of him.

***

Sam stepped out of the bathroom to see all the bags he packed unpacked, his stuff pushed back into bureau drawers and left on the chair in the corner of the room. He looked at Dean, who was lounging on the bed watching a documentary about mass incarceration. “What the hell?”

Dean glanced at him. “What the hell what?”

“Why’s my stuff everywhere?”

Dean shrugged, eyes still on the T.V. “We’re not leaving.”

Sam snorted in disbelief. “Since when?”

“Since I said so.”

“Since you--” Sam restrained an eye roll. “What are we staying for?”

Dean turned the volume down, finally making continuous eye contact with Sam. “Unfinished business,” he said, letting out a breath and rubbing his palms on the seat of his pants.

A lightning bolt of worry wiggled its way into Sam. “About the case?” Sam asked. “Did something happen?”

“No, not about the case,” Dean assured him. “All the rest of the kids are safe. Hopefully happy. Think we struck the fear of god in those caretakers.”

Dean stood up. “Nah, you’ll see,” he said. “Something else came up.”

“Are you gonna tell me what it is?”

Dean grinned at him. “Nope.”

“Jerk.” Sam was smiling. Curse his body.

“Bitch.” Dean patted Sam on the ass as he walked past.

Okay, so maybe Sam was okay with staying in this town for just a little bit longer.

***

Dean drove a curious Sam out of town and down a long dirt road. The radio was off. Dean didn’t react to any of Sam’s probing questions. The man was a damn card player, no tells.

Sam resigned himself to sitting back and popping some pain pills, knee jiggling as he peered at the ever wilder scenery they sped past, gravel rumbling and bumping against the Impala’s bumper with a metallic clink.

Dean turned down a narrow side road with a merry little carved wooden sign that read GREEN OAKS NATURE PRESERVE. The road ended in a little dirt parking lot with only one other car parked. Dean parked the Impala and got out.

Sam wordlessly followed him. It was a brisk day today, but nothing his jacket couldn’t protect him from. Sam craned his neck and took in his surroundings.

It was a beautiful place. They’d arrived during the exact right time during the fall where summer finally let go, but winter hadn’t yet stuck its icy fingers in. The trees were a myriad of colors, ranging from piney greens to oranges to deep russets and bright yellows. Leaves crunched underfoot; birds tittered overhead. It was overcast.

When Sam looked back to Dean, Dean was holding a picnic basket.

Sam blinked. “Is that--”

“The best meal you’ve ever tasted?” Dean interjected. “I suppose you’ll have to find out.”

With that, and with a mysterious eyebrow waggle, Dean turned and set off down one of the preserve’s paths. Sam had no choice but to jog after him and follow along with whatever Dean had set up for them.

Venturing deeper into the woods, Sam was reluctant to interrupt the views and interrogate Dean.

One of Sam’s favorite places on earth was an arboretum he’d visited in elementary school with Dean, a flower-dotted, green fantasy place in Cleveland. This was a close second.

No one was around, and they were far enough from civilization that there were no traffic noises, no planes overhead.

It felt like they were alone on the planet.

As far as Sam could see, verdant valleys rolled into the distance and autumn leaves floated on the surface of placid ponds. The paths were dotted with mossy stones, benches placed at scenic lookouts, boardwalks leading out into marshes.

Dean stopped them in a broad meadow with a gazebo at one end. Dean led Sam to an empty patch of grass, kicking leaves out of the way before yanking a red and white checkered blanket out of the picnic basket with flourish and spreading it out on the forest floor.

Dean set down the picnic basket, and Sam crouched to help, but Dean swatted him away with a clucking noise. Sam laughed, standing back up to watch as Dean set out plates, utensils, napkins and paper cups.

What Dean pulled out next set Sam’s mouth to watering.

He hadn’t realized that they hadn’t eaten yet today until he saw the sandwiches Dean put on plates. There were grapes, too, and champagne, even though Sam knew for a fact Dean thought it was a “frilly, bitchy drink.”

Chocolates, apple pie, carrots and spinach dip, Caesar salad, all Sam’s favorites.

Sam sat down across from Dean, searching for the woods. Dean looked up at him. Something must have shown on Sam’s face.

“Hey,” Dean murmured. “Here.” He handed Sam a fork. “Dig in.”

So Sam speared some salad onto his plate.

It was delicious. Even Dean seemed to be enjoying himself, despite the lack of artery-clogging foods.

“See?” Sam pointed out, toeing Dean’s ankle. “I’ll fix your palate someday.”

Dean pointed a butter knife at him. “Don’t take advantage of my generosity. You know I have to wash this down with a quarter-pounder. It’s what Saint Ronald would want.”

Sam laughed. Dean glowed at Sam’s laughter.

They ate more. Sam closed his eyes, tilting his head up to enjoy the slight breeze and warm sunlight on his face. He felt like a woodland creature, Dean too, and this was their fairytale home. When he opened his eyes, Dean was looking at him.

They stuffed themselves. Sam drifted from his side of the blanket to Dean’s. Dean fed Sam apple pie. Sam couldn’t stop grinning.

“Oh, god,” Dean laughed.

“What?”

Dean shook his head. “Y’got chocolate in yer dimples,” he said. “You’ve always been a messy eater.” Dean’s face morphed into something gentler, more fond. Before Sam could comment, Dean leaned forward and licked the chocolate from Sam’s face.

Dean’s breath puffed out against Sam’s face. Dean pulled away, but didn’t leave Sam’s orbit, and they froze inches away from each other, looking into each other’s eyes.

In the end, Sam wasn’t sure who made the first move. All he knew was that he was kissing Dean, and he’d died and gone to heaven and died there and gone to super heaven.

They broke apart. Dean’s eyes were wide, flicking between Sam’s. “Sammy…” he trailed off in a whisper, reedy and desperate.

Sam made a noise in the back of his throat and grabbed Dean by the shirt collar, tugging him closer. Dean knocked into him, hands fumbling, shaking, finding their way up to Sam’s jaw and holding tight as they kissed and kissed and kissed.

Sam moaned. It wasn’t necessary sexual, just needy, just… he needed this. He never wanted anything else ever again. Dean’s hands squeezed at his shoulder, Dean’s tongue running across Sam’s bottom lip. Sam gave his whole into the kiss, pressing closer and closer, Dean doing the same, until they were pressed chest to chest, Sam practically in Dean’s lap.

Dean broke the kiss, lips red, cheeks pink. He leaned back, breathlessly looking at Sam like he couldn’t quite process what just happened. “Well,” he chuckled, “goodbye, poster of Jessica Alba.”

Sam rolled his eyes, bickering with Dean until it got too dark and chilly to stay.

Sam helped Dean pack up the remnants of the picnic in silence. Crickets filled the quiet.

Jesus. Kisses had distracted Sam from how full he was. Now all he wanted to do was lay back and watch some mind numbing T.V.

Once everything was packed up, Dean took the picnic basket in one arm and wrapped the other around Sam’s waist. They walked back through the woods with the aid of Sam’s flashlight side by side.

Dean poked the lump on Sam’s head. “How’s the head?” he asked.

Sam had forgotten all about it during the picnic, but coming back down to earth from super heaven was an unpleasant reminder that he did have a head injury, and it did hurt.

“It’s okay,” he said honestly. “Could use some water and ibuprofen.”

Dean squeezed Sam’s hip. “Coming right up,” he said, just as they got back to Baby.

***

Back home, Dean followed through on his promise. They took turns showering, and Dean herded a pajama’d Sam from the bathroom to the bed, tucking him in and handing him a glass of water and pain meds. Sam dutifully swallowed them down, and Dean made a satisfied noise, snuggling his own boxer-clad body right up next to Sam, pulling the comforter up to their shoulders. The heater was on full blast, clicking merrily away.

Dean grabbed the remote and turned the T.V. on. He flicked aimlessly through the channels, blue light washing across his face. Sam yawned, tangling his feet with Dean’s.

Dean hissed, but didn’t move his feet or look away from the screen. “Ice picks,” he muttered.

Sam rested his head on Dean’s shoulder. “Would you rather I leave?”

Dean scoffed and shuffled a little closer. “Bitch.”

Sam hummed happily. “Jerk.” He poked Dean’s ankle with an ice cube toe.

Dean found a channel that was playing one of the Ghostbusters movies, so they settled in for a comforting watch, bathing in the nostalgia of countless sleepovers, movies, and bedsharing moments from motel rooms past.

Dean carded his fingers through Sam’s hair, tucking some wayward strands behind Sam’s ear. “Your head?” Dean asked.

“S’fine,” Sam answered. “Ooh. I just remembered Stay Puft. That’s my favorite part of the movie.”

“Don’t know how you could ever forget about Stay Puft, considering he used to give you night terrors.”

“Shut up. No he didn’t.”

“My tear-stained, teenage shirts say otherwise.”

Sam elbowed Dean. “Like you were without irrational fears. The way we were raised, you embraced death but shivered at the sight of Little Bunny Foo Foo.”

“Hey.” Dean looked genuinely offended. “That rabbit had dead eyes, Sam. Dead eyes.”

Sam laughed. “Sure, Dean. Sure.”

Dean elbowed Sam back. They were quiet for a bit, getting caught up in the storyline and goofy looking CGI ghosts.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean spoke up at the commercial break. “Do you remember when Pastor Jim built you that treehouse?”

Sam snorted, lips curling up in a fond smile as he was slingshotted back in time. “It was for both of us.”

“Oh, it was definitely for you,” Dean snickered. “You’d been askin’ Bobby for one for like, four years already. I think your first words were probably ‘can I have a treehouse.’”

Sam giggled, but another thought hit him and he melted a little. “My first word was Dean.”

Dean was quiet for a beat. “I know,” he said, and his arm wrapped tighter around Sam’s waist.

“I’m glad we still have sleepovers,” Sam said. “S’nice.”

Dean snorted. “Not really the same.”

Sam shook his head. “All fourteen year old me wanted to do was play spin the bottle with you. This is like his biggest wet dream.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean shuffled closer, nibbling at Sam’s neck. “What about this?”

A full body shiver hit Sam and his eyes fluttered. “Yeah,” he managed. “He woulda liked that. A lot.”

Dean pressed his body against Sam’s, one hand rubbing up and down Sam’s side. He kiss-bit a hickey into the spot below Sam’s ear. Dean must have been goddamn psychic, because that particular spot was one that made his toes curl. Feeling Dean’s callouses rub against his bare skin was a bonus.

Sam moaned. He couldn’t help it. The sound energized Dean, motivated him, and Ghostbusters was all but forgotten. Dean paused his bruising and hickeying in exchange for kissing, both of his hands getting under Sam’s shirt and undershirt to explore and rub and make Sam tremble.

Sam was hard.

He was really hard.

He rubbed up against Dean, climbing into Dean’s lap, looping his arms around Dean’s neck and kissing Dean like Dean was his source of life.

Dean grunted under him, breaths coming rougher, faster. One of Dean’s hands fisted in the hair at the base of Sam’s neck and tugged, shoving Sam into a bitey, teeth-clickey kiss. Sam moaned again, hips shifting, body wanting, searching friction.

His hands clung to Dean’s back; Dean’s hands started working at the buttons on his shirt. Dizzy and sex crazy, Sam got to helping Dean, trembling fingers popping buttons. He rolled his shoulders, shaking out of the shirt and tossing it across the room.

The next few minutes were a frenzy of kissing, biting, growling, and stripping, until they’d pried all the various layers off of each other and were sitting naked under the covers, Sam in Dean’s lap, Dean’s hard cock pushing against Sam’s.

It was real. It was very real. It was happening. It was messier than Sam’s fantasies, a little more awkward, more starts and stops than his daydreams included, but it was better. It was perfect.

He’d never been needier in his life, whimpering, hitching his hips just to get the smallest amount of friction, panting at the mere idea of Dean’s cock being right there, bared, heated and pressed against Sam’s.

Sam looked down.

Their cockheads were both beaded with precome, twitching against each other. Sam must’ve said something, probably “fuck,” because Dean looked down, too.

Dean’s head was fatter but Sam’s was taller. Sam wrapped his hand around his cock and painted his precome against the wide veins on the side of Dean’s shaft.

Dean hissed. “Fuck, baby,” he said. “Fuck, look at you. Lemme see that.”

Sam let go of his cock and pushed down a hip jerk when Dean’s hand wrapped loosely around him.

Dean hummed in appreciation. “Knew you were hung, Sammy, but damn. Save some for the rest of us.”

Dean dipped his finger into Sam’s cockhead and Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head. Dean played with the underside of Sam’s cockhead, squeezing the shaft, rolling Sam’s tightly drawn balls in his hand until Sam was a shivering, twitchy mess.

“Two can play,” Sam growled, spitting into his hand and getting his hand around Dean’s cock, and fuck, Dean was so big, how was that going to fit? He’d be stretched so wide.

He jerked Dean fast and rough, tugging from the base to the shaft, just the way he liked it. Dean bit off a slurry of convoluted swears and groans, burying his face in Sam’s shoulder, jerking Sam the same way until they were both panting, hitching closer to completion.

Sam let go of Dean and leaned back.

Dean made a noise like he’d been stabbed. He sat up, gawping at Sam. “W-what? What are you doing?”

Sam wriggled. “I want you inside me.”

Sam watched his words send all of Dean’s blood away from his head to his cock. Dean sat there, deer in the headlights, until he managed to start nodding. “Yeah,” Dean coughed. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

They froze again, uncertainty stalling them, Sam’s anxieties preventing him from thinking properly. Dean read it off him--Dean could always read it off him--and drew Sam into another sensual kiss, distracting Sam long enough to lower him further down on the bed until his head hit the pillow. The sheets were kicked off.

Dean cuddled up by Sam’s side, experimentally pinching nipples and kissing at the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Turn over for me, baby?” Dean whispered.

A full body shudder wracked through Sam and he closed his eyes. His cock got impossibly heavier. He didn’t know how he was going to survive the night. He turned onto his tummy, cock pressed between the mattress and his tummy, still twitching.

Physical memories assaulted him and he bit back a groan. Dean was sticking a pillow under his hips. This was the exact position Sam had been in when he’d been fucking the pocket pussy and putting on a show for Dean, a horndog zombie, much like he was now.

He restlessly rubbed off against the pillow, clenching his thighs, while Dean did whatever the hell Dean was doing. Sam’s view was the headboard and not much else. He flipped his hair out of his eyes and looked over his shoulder to see Dean grabbing a condom and some lube from his backpack.

Their eyes met. Dean crawled back on the bed, seating himself between Sam’s willing, spread legs.

“No condom,” Sam said.

Dean mulled it over. “You sure?”

“Don’t need one,” Sam assured him. “Wanna be yours.”

“Don’t mean to be all, uh, unsexy right now,” Dean coughed, “but we should get tested later, okay? Together. Don’t think I have anything, but better safe.”

“Of course.” A part of Sam’s rational brain was able to make an appearance. “Now do something, you asshat.”

Dean chuckled. “Bossy, bossy,” he teased.

Sam buried his face in the pillow, lifting his ass up expectantly.

Dean’s hands massaged his ass, and Dean made a catlike hum, almost a purr. “What a view, Sammy, what a view,” he rumbled. “Didn’t appreciate this enough the first time.”

Dean slapped Sam’s ass and Sam jumped, his ass burning. He let out a breath, and Dean’s hands patted the red spot. “Mine,” Dean said, and if Sam could find the words now, he would have said he couldn’t have agreed more.

Dean played with Sam’s ass for a while, and Sam heard him pause to jerk himself a few times. Sam was no better--he was humping the pillow in little jerks, just trying to find some friction and never getting enough.

It was a while longer before Dean’s hand massaged at his hole and his balls.

Dean’s touch didn’t penetrate, just rubbed in even strokes, and it felt good, it felt comforting. Sam let his head fall to the pillow, and he closed his eyes, just focusing on drawing even breaths and the feel of Dean’s fingers and breath against his ass.

Dean’s breath.

Before he knew what was happening, Dean’s tongue was licking broad stripes from his balls up to the top of his ass, spending the most time laving and spreading saliva over his hole.

Sam moaned from somewhere deep in his throat, hips shifting. Dean’s hands went to his back, holding him down and keeping him in place.

Dean licked deeper.

Warm and wet was all Sam felt. It was equal parts hot and kinda comforting. He found himself relaxing under Dean’s ministrations, pressing his ass against Dean’s face, all anxieties forgotten.

Dean was talented.

He worked Sam slowly open, pressing his tongue as far as it could go, alternating between broad stripes and fucking Sam with the tip of his tongue. Sam was living in it, existing only as a funnel of pleasure.

Dean withdrew. “That feel good, baby?” he rasped.

“De,” Sam could barely speak. He was shaking and gasping. “Please. More.”

Dean didn’t respond, but Sam could hear him tugging on his cock. A moment later and Dean’s tongue was back, drawing Sam closer and closer to the edge until Sam was sobbing and moaning into the pillow, feeling like a slutty little bitch, like a whore.

It was addicting.

Sam’s body was clenching and unclenching in waves. He was close to cresting the wave when Dean abruptly withdrew and slapped Sam’s ass again, harder than before.

Sam was dizzy, incoherent. “What--”

“You wanted me inside you, didn’t you, bitch?” Dean growled. “Do you want it or not?”

Oh, god.

“Yes,” Sam gasped. “Yes, fuck, please.”

“Please what?”

When Sam had half a brain again, he was gonna kill Dean. “Please fuck me.”

Dean grabbed the lube, pouring it over his fingers and adding it to the mess of Sam’s ass.

Dean grabbed Sam by the hips and lifted him up onto his knees. Sam wiggled his ass in the air, pushing back, seeking friction. Sam ducked his head, watching Dean and watching his own dripping cock through his legs. Dean got a firm grip on himself, aligned his cock with Sam’s hole, and pushed in with one firm thrust.

Sam was full on the side of painful. His body didn’t know how to react. They were both panting, staying still, letting Sam adjust. Then, just when Sam thought the burn was going away, Dean pulled out and slammed back in.

It hurt but it hurt good. Sam’s breath was punched out of him and Dean did it again. Dean fucked him shallowly at first, but went deeper and harder the more Sam opened up under him, pausing to pour lube all over his cock until it was dripping onto the bed.

Dean fucked him good. The noises were wet and disgusting and delicious. Dean didn’t hold back, forcing choked off whimpers and moans out of Sam every time he slammed back in. His pace increased, balls slapping rhymically against Sam’s rim.

Dean grunted, adjusting his position, getting onto his feet and bending over Sam, and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. That was the spot and it was better now that it had been with Dean’s tongue. It was perfect. Sam was full, full of wet and heat and good and stuffed with Dean’s cock, still burning but he welcomed it, he wanted it, fucking back on Dean’s cock like a robot, like a slave, like a bitch--

Sam’s orgasm hit him like an avalanche, tears hitting the pillow with his come, Dean fucking him through it, making it last, Sam crying out senselessly. Dean kept fucking him even when it became too much, when it was so sensitive he jumped under Dean’s aggressive touches, and a moment later, he heard a single pained, sobbing groan as Dean’s hips stilled and Dean pumped come deep inside of him.

Sam could feel Dean’s cock twitching inside him and the come dripping down his balls. Dean came for a long time, fucking Sam through the aftershocks, Sam stretched open and loose and the come adding more wetness and squishing noises to the mess. Sam was destroyed; Sam was ruined.

And he loved it.

He couldn’t remember much after that. Dean pulled out at some point, and come continued to drip out of Sam’s abused hole, which Dean muttered some filth about, poking a finger in and finding zero resistance.

Sam fell from his knees, limp and useless, and he barely registered Dean cleaning him up and getting some clean towels under his hips.

He floated in and out of consciousness for a good while, only falling fully asleep when the bed dipped with Dean’s weight and Dean’s warmth pressed solidly against his back.

***

Sam woke up sore.

He heard the shower running, knew he was in bed alone.

And he hurt.

His lips hurt where Dean had bitten them. His palms were scabbed from where his nails had dug in. He was littered with bruises and hickeys that were sensitive to the touch. His hips and back ached like he was an old man. His head throbbed.

And his hole was sore as hell.

That feeling brought all his memories back, and remembering in the light of day how depraved and animalistic he’d been last night made him blush something furious. Dean had dressed him in boxers at some point, but his chest was still bare, and the towel underneath him was rumpled up and dirty. Evidence that last night had really truly happened.

Sam sat up and winced, his hole twinging with the movement. He smiled despite himself. He felt like he’d been run over by a train but it was completely fucking worth it. Jesus christ.

He heard the shower turn off and he got out of bed. Once on his legs, he stumbled over to the nearest wall, clinging to it for support. He pushed open the bathroom door and waddled inside, stopping to lean against the sink at the same moment Dean got out of the shower. Sam tried not to glance at Dean’s soft cock swinging between his legs.

Dean eyed Sam up and down. “You look awful,” he said. A cocky grin grew over his features like egotistical vines. “Guess I have myself to thank for that.”

“Urgh.” Sam wished he were more alive so he could put Dean in his place. He looked up at his reflection in the foggy mirror and found his hair a rat’s nest, his eyes bleary.

He took a shower while Dean finished up his morning routine. By the time he left the bathroom, Dean had come home with some breakfast bagels and coffee, and Sam felt more alive, dressed and decent.

He sat down across from Dean at the kitchenette table and dug in, moaning in food ecstacy at the first bite of toasted everything bagel with cream cheese. Dean had even gotten him his favorite soy vanilla latte, complete with whipped cream he licked off the top. He hadn’t realized how starving he was until he took his first bite.

Dean watched in amusement, eyebrow quirked and legs kicked up as Sam devoured his meal and then eyed the crumbs of Dean’s leftovers. Dean gestured at them. “Go ahead,” he said.

Sam did, stuffing his face until he was so full he couldn’t move. He leaned back in his chair, letting out a sigh and staring at the ceiling.

“So.” Dean cleared his throat. “Last night.”

Sam felt the blush return to his cheeks. “Last night.”

Dean gave Sam a look. “I’ve never seen you like that,” he said. “Didn’t think you had it in you. Don’t seem like much of a sub.”

Sam’s entire face was red at his point, up to his ears. “Pretty sure that’s your fault,” he said, looking at his lap.

Dean chucked. “You’re probably right.”

Sam looked up. “Was it--was it good for you? I wasn’t even thinking. I--”

“Sammy.” Dean cut off his nervous ramble. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Sam couldn’t help but smile. “Me, too,” he said. He hid his face behind his hands and laughed. “God, Dean, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think.”

“Geek boy’s got a weakness,” Dean teased in a sing song. “Somewhere up his ass.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment,” he said.

Dean put his hands up. “Hey, always knew I had two babies, didn’t I? Now I know you both need regular lubing. S’good.”

Sam groaned. “Just… we can do that more, right?” he asked. “‘Cause I want more of that. A lot more.”

“Sammy,” Dean said, impressed. “I like you when you’re all bossy like that.”

“Good,” Sam let the syllable click through his teeth. “You’ll be seeing more of it. And panties. I want panties.”

Dark, heated looks were exchanged over the table, Dean with ease and dominance and Sam trying to provoke Dean, a nonverbal battle. In the end, it was settled by Dean’s phone ringing on his night stand across the room. He got up to grab it, saying “this ain’t over, Sammy,” before answering the phone.

Sam watched Dean’s body language change from relaxed predator to ramrod soldier. “Bobby,” Dean said. “How goes it?” A pause while Bobby spoke, asking a question.

“Still there,” Dean answered. Bobby’s tinny voice just barely echoed out from the phone’s speakers. “Nah, just had to fix up a few things. Yeah. Where? Okay. Yeah. We can be there in a day. Yeah. See you.” Dean hung up the phone.

Sam locked eyes with Dean. “A hunt?”

“Possible haunting in Okemos,” Dean said. “Couple hours East of here.”

“We taking it?”

“S’our job,” Dean said. “And we’re done here, right?”

Sam felt something in his heart deflate a little. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re done here.”

***

They lingered for a late breakfast but started packing right after. They moved around in the room in silence, tossing clothes in duffels with lazy abandon but packing away weapons with military precision and care. It wasn’t long before the Impala was all packed up and the checkout date was upon them.

It was a cold day when they left, rain on the horizon. They drove South around Lake Michigan, then North into the state. The weather lessened up a little, but that wasn’t saying much. The fall beauty was still abounds, but it was definitely sweater weather.

The drive was mostly silent. Sam stared out the passenger side window, brow furrowed as he mulled things over.

They’d talked, yes, and Sam was comforted by Dean’s obvious reciprocation of Sam’s feelings, but where did they stand? What did they do now? Where did they go from here?

Little specifics kept setting his knee to jiggling. What happened when they worked cases with other hunters? What happened when they stayed over with Bobby? Would looks and touches Sam found normal appear more than brotherly to other people? Or was he just being paranoid?

What about when they rolled into town and stopped at the first diner they saw? What about when Dean ordered the cherry pie from the cute waitress with D cups? Just the theoretical scenario set Sam on edge, familiar jealousy sharper and more resolute now that Sam had had the real thing.

The further North they drove the moodier Sam got. It came to a head when Dean pulled off to a rest stop. They shrugged their coats on, got some drinks from a vending machine, and sat on the hood, staring out at pine trees and the even grey sky.

“Okay,” Dean said, taking a sip of Faygo cherry. “What’s going on in your head right now?”

“The usual,” Sam said.

“So, emo bitchiness?” Dean guessed. “Sammy, come on. You should be on cloud nine right now.”

Sam shrugged, looking off over the hills and feeling Dean’s eyes on him. “We couldn’t’ve stayed in that motel forever,” he said. “And we still can’t.”

Dean was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his tone was serious enough to make Sam look over at him. “We’re not doing this shit ‘cause it’s easy, or even ‘cause it’s fun,” Dean said. “A lot of the time, it’s gonna be fucking neither.”

Sam sagged.

“So what?” Dean asked. “Haven’t we always said, ‘fuck it?’ Fuck what other people think about us, man. That’s none of their goddamn business.”

“But what about when it gets too hard?” Sam asked. “We’re gonna be at each other’s throats half the time. And I--I need it all, okay, I told you before. Everything. So I can’t have this halfway--”

“Give me some fucking credit,” Dean laughed but he definitely didn’t find this conversation funny. “Do you think I woulda done all this for some halfway bullshit? You’re mine, Sammy, with or without your ass.”

Sam softened, guilt soaking his bones at the devotion in Dean’s eyes. Still, he wasn’t. He wasn’t perfect, okay? “You mean that?” he asked softly.

The edge slipped off Dean’s features. “Hey.” He gave Sam a little grin. “A’ ‘course. Just you n’ me, right? Even when you’re an annoying baby.”

Sam rolled his eyes, taking the final sip of his soda, noticing Dean’s eyes were on the column of his throat. “Promise me.”

Dean laughed. “Seriously?”

Sam gave Dean an even look. “Promise.”

“You’re serious.”

Yes, he was. He waited while Dean wiped his lips and swallowed.

“Sammy, I promise,” Dean vowed. “Now, what, do I gotta seal it with a kiss?”

“I promise, too,” Sam said, curling his pinky around Dean’s and squeezing. “‘Til death do us part.”

Dean squeezed Sam’s pinky. “‘Til death do us part,” he echoed.

They kissed.

Dean’s arms went up around Sam’s back, pulling him closer, Sam opened his mouth wider, pushing his tongue into Dean’s mouth, and Dean met him mile for mile. The kiss got wet and ragged, and Dean gave him one last deep, wet kiss before pulling away.

Sam’s heart was in his throat and all of his blood was in his pants. Dean looked him up and down and shook his head, smiling. “Never gonna get tired of that,” he said. He ruffled Sam’s hair. “Or this.”

Dean slid off the hood. Sam followed suit, grabbing up the glass bottles and chucking them into the recycling bin. They stood on either side of Baby, staring at each other over the hood.

“You ready?” Dean asked. “Actually ready?”

Sam smiled, watching it echo on Dean’s face. “I’m ready,” he said, and he was.

They got into the car in sync. Dean turned the radio up loud while bobbing his head and peeling out of the parking lot. Sam only had eyes for him.

They drove off.

Into another day, another town, another case, but always the same two boys, stuck in each other’s back pocket and folded up together at night.

Just how it should be.

The End

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys as always.
> 
> Sorry for being so rushed! Will spiff up later.


End file.
